7-manna - great performance of Polish Junior Team ;-)

We are in Sweden for 3 days now and yesterday our first competition took place. For my team it was a 7-person relay. The first 3 legs (me, Olej, Jacek) were held at night while the other 4 (Jasina, Hewi, Stefan, Rino) - during the day.
Our night trio made a really good start for our team, especially the very first leg. Already before the mass start I felt I was not going to compete well that day. I had been trying to get these thoughts out of my mind but I did not manage...
We started really fast and I did my best to keep up with the leaders. Unfortunately, I only succeeded in doing it to the first control, which was ridiculously easy. Then, at the second control a huge forking came and I lost contact with the map and leading group completely. I had found 2 or 3 other controls before actually finding mine. Having punched this control, I knew I would have to run the rest of the course alone and felt a bit confused and discouraged.
However, I had nothing else to do than run forward and reach the next controls as quickly as possible.
The 5th control was a really long leg and I felt a bit afraid of it whereas I am not good enough at choosing long route choices in Sweden. What's more, it was a night orienteering course! My pace was very miserable, although I managed to find this control after facing some minor difficulties.
On my way to the 10th control I already knew it would be very hard not to make any mistake... and I was pretty right. I pushed my pace a bit hoping to get out of this tricky area as fast as possible. While looking for this control I saw a whole pack or runners behind me including some 'M65s' and a black man. I felt so ashamed and wanted to finish my course right now! I lost about 4 minutes there...
At the 11th control I decided to take my revenge and be the man to follow towards it, but it was a poor consolation.
To the next control I made another mistake of some 3 minutes. I don't really want to describe it precisely, but I could not understand the map just before the control because there were so many rocks in the terrain!
To fulfil my yesterday's nightmare I made a 'M10'-mistake having enormous problems to find the control no. 100.
To sum it all up, I made an awful race losing almost 25 minutes to the winner, achieving the 60th position (of 73 competitors). Luckily, Olej wasn't much better and my mood got a bit better after his race. Eventually, we finished at 45th place.......

And now a special bonus for all of you!
Although I had a bad day at yesterday's competition, Kaszub made a race of his life at his today's 6th leg. I really wish he had run for my relay as he made only 11 minutes of mistakes and reach the time of 47:04 on the 5,4km course. We are very proud of him and hope he's gonna smash his opponents' asses at tomorrow long distance in Hassleholm. Keep your fingers crossed for him at 10:18! :-)